Media Research Center

Media Research Center Inc. (MRC) is a conservative media watchdog group run by president and founder Brent Bozell. In 2006 the MRC had total revenue of $10.8 million and 50 full-time staff members. It is predominately funded by larger right-wing foundations (see below) with other comparatively minor sources of income from rental income and investments. In it's 2006 annual report, the group's founder wrote that MRC "continued to regularly provide intellectual ammunition to conservative activists, arming them with the weapons to fight the leftist press."

The MRC operates a number of subsidiary projects including the Business & Media Institute (formerly known as the the Free Market Project); CNSNews.com, a conservative news service; the NewsBusters blog; TimesWatch, a website focusing on the New York Times; the Culture and Media Institute and the MRC Action Team.

(The Parents Television Council was founded in 1995 as a MRC project but, in 2000, was split off to become a separate legal entity. Brent Bozell, who founded the MRC, was president of both organisations until January 2007, when he resigned as President of the PTC but remains a member of the board of directors. )

Mission statement
From MRC's website: "The mission of the Media Research Center is to bring balance and responsibility to the news media. Leaders of America's conservative movement have long believed that within  the national news media a strident liberal bias existed that influenced  the public's understanding of critical issues. On October 1, 1987, a group  of young determined conservatives set out to not only prove - through  sound scientific research - that liberal bias in the media does exist and undermines traditional American values, but also to neutralize its impact on the American political scene. What they launched that fall is the now acclaimed --- Media Research Center  (MRC)."

Controversies
In November of 2000, MRC and a subsidiary, Parents Television Council (an advocacy group also founded and run by Mr. Bozell), were sued by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). MRC/PTC settled out-of-court for $3.5 million. See Parents Television Council for more information about this lawsuit.

In 1994, the MRC first printed the following excerpt from Howell Raines' book, Fly Fishing Through the Midlife Crisis:

"Then one day in the summer of 1981 I found myself at the L.L. Bean store in Freeport, Maine. I was a correspondent in the White House in those days, and my work -- which consisted of reporting on President Reagan's success in making life harder for citizens who were not born rich, white, and healthy -- saddened me....My parents raised me to admire generosity and to feel pity. I had arrived in our nation's capital [in 1981] during a historic ascendancy of greed and hard-heartedness....Reagan couldn't tie his shoelaces if his life depended on it."

But the quotes were cobbled together from two different sections of the book; the span of the ellipsis between "hard-heartedness" and "Reagan couldn't tie" is 28 pages. Further, the statement "Reagan couldn't tie his shoelaces if his life depended on it" refers in context to Reagan's fly-fishing skills, not his IQ. The MRC later appended a "clarification" putting the statements in their proper context.

Criticism
Extra!, the magazine of the progressive media watch group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, has criticized the MRC for selective use of evidence--the MRC had complained, for example, that there was more coverage of government death squads in right-wing El Salvador than in left-wing Nicaragua, without mentioning that there were roughly a thousand times more extra-judicial killings in El Salvador. Extra! also characterized the MRC as wanting to force out of the media any opinions that it disagreed with, even tracking the off-screen political comments of actors in a project that the magazine said "bore an uncomfortable resemblance to Red Channels, the McCarthy Era blacklisting journal." 

The liberal media watch group Media Matters for America has also repeatedly criticized the MRC, charging that they view the media "through a funhouse mirror that renders everything--even the facts themselves--as manifestations of insidious bias." 

Key personnel

 * Brent Bozell, President and CEO
 * Tim Graham, Director of Media Analysis
 * Brent Baker, Vice President for Research and Publications, Steven P.J. Wood Senior Fellow
 * Terry Jeffrey, CNSNews.com Editor-in-Chief
 * Dan Gainor, Vice President of Business & Culture, T. Boone Pickens Fellow

Subsidiaries

 * Business & Media Institute (formerly the Free Market Project)
 * CNSNews.com
 * NewsBusters
 * TimesWatch
 * Culture and Media Institute

Funding

 * Exxon Mobil
 * The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc.
 * Sarah Scaife Foundation
 * Castle Rock Foundation
 * John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.
 * The Carthage Foundation
 * JM Foundation

Non-MRC media contact
The May 11, 2006, MRC press release "Public Demands Networks to 'Tell the Truth!' about Iraq War. Media Research Center delivers over 140,000 petitions demanding fair media coverage" directs inquiries to either Colleen O'Boyle or Tim Scheiderer at 703-683-5004, which is the phone number for Creative Response Concepts of Alexandria, Virginia.

Contact information
Media Research Center 325 S. Patrick Street Alexandria, VA 22314 Ph. (703) 683-9733 http://www.mediaresearch.org/

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Brent Bozell
 * Parents Television Council

External resources

 * "Media Research Center, Inc." profile at Media Transparency.

External articles

 * Howard Kurtz, "Bias Watch," Washington Post, June 28, 2004 (scroll down to mid-page): Bozell's Media Research Center has raised $2.8 million for newspaper ads in 15 markets, billboards in 40 cities and a talk-radio blitz aimed at countering what he sees as a "liberal jihad" that is unfair to President Bush. The slogan (also on T-shirts and mugs) is not exactly subtle: A finger-pointing Uncle Sam declares: "Don't believe the liberal media!"
 * Jeff Jarvis, "FCC -- and Media -- Duped by Brent Bozell's Complaint Factory," Buzz Machine, December 6, 2004.
 * Bill Berkowitz, "Media Research Center Takes on The West Wing: Conservative Philanthropy-Supported Group Claims Show Had Liberal Bias", Media Transparency, May 22, 2006.
 * Peter Hart and Steve Rendall, "Meet the Mythmakers", Extra!, July/August 1998.
 * Paul Waldman, "MRC Studies That 'Prove' Media's 'Liberal Bias' Collapse Under Scrutiny", Media Matters for America, May 11, 2005.
 * Terry Krepel, "Fairly Unbalanced", ConWebWatch, May 2, 2007. Details how appearances by MRC representatives on Fox News Channel tend to be solo, unbalanced, and the MRC spokespeople unidentified as conservative.
 * Matthew Balan, "CNN Bashes Conservative Ads With 'Industry Insider,' Omits His Far Left Affiliation," Media Research Center, July 2, 2009.
 * Laurie Bennett, "Conservative media monitor attracts the big bucks," Muckety.com, August 11, 2009.